Because We're Friends
by skitskitpotter
Summary: John Watson is Sherlock's numerical constant - his flatmate, his follower, his friend - until a bullet swipes the universe out from beneath him. The only consulting detective in the world can do nothing but keep a silent vigil over his comatose partner-in-crime as he grapples with the immediate possibility of John's death.


Inspired by Madtenka on deviantART (link: art/please-185651231)

"There!"

My voice is a thunderous ripple of stone through the pond-like stillness of the night as my feet gather beneath me to eat the leaf-laden ground again. "John, do you see him?" I call over my shoulder.

It's only by the faint illumination the night sky reflects from the city lights that I'm able to discern his smaller figure. His gaze is raised above my eyes, focused on the dark shape my pointing finger reveals. "Yes, I – " His eyes widen. "Look out!"

My head whips forward just in time to catch a moonlit gleam of metal emerge from beneath the folds of the figure's coat. I throw myself up against the saturated bark of an oak as a percussive shot rings through the air. My fingers tremble with exhilaration.

I turn to see John bent over his service gun. He loads the chamber and turns off the safety. My ears attune to the sound as my eyes search the forest for the shape of the criminal. For a moment, I can only detect the unbroken line of the horizon. I leap forward at the slightest motion disturbing the brush off to the left. "Follow me!"

The leaves crush beneath our feet as we tear after him, branches whipping past our faces, wind whistling at our ears. The silver light radiating from the moon just elucidates for me the footpath the man has made trampling over the scrub. The steps are bulky, heavy, clumsy, the clear mark of a person who has never had occasion to go dashing through the night.

I lose the trail when it enters into the softer, springier grass nourished by the seeping of the reservoir. My chest heaves for air, and I throw my gloved palm against the trunk of the nearest tree, sweat slinking thirstily down the contours of my face. The ache tugging at the tendons in my legs trills in my pulse.

My mind has never been clearer.

"Where is he, Sherlock?" calls John's voice, ragged now with exertion, from off to my right.

"I – " I hear my breath hitch in my throat while I scan the line of the trees for the man. "There!" I pitch myself off the trunk. My muscles tighten as a cut of bark rips through my glove and into the skin of my palm. It's not long before blood is licking at my fingers. I grin.

I hear John come to an abrupt halt from some few feet behind me. His gun clicks. A volley of shots explodes from both sides.

I rush forward, my feet slipping over the wet ground. I can just see the criminal's head disappearing over the edge of the hill. I vault up the slope, my grip tearing tufts of grass out from the dirt as I scramble for a foothold. There's a jolt in my stomach, and I don't recognise that my left foot has squelched into the mud until my face is an inch from the ground. My chin takes the brunt of the fall. It takes me far too long to push myself up with my legs quivering in protest.

I strain my eyes against the blackness to discern the man's figure. I catch the vague shapes of the looming oaks – the tinny gleam of the reservoir's waters – the shadowed dancing of the clustered grass; but no man. Only the covering of the night. Too slow. There's always something.

I slide back down the hill. The mud is cold and damp through the cloth of my trousers as I gain flat footing again. "He's gone, John, I can't see him," I call hoarsely. My gaze turns to the iridescent glow of the overhead stars, the crisp air filling my nose with a brisk cold. "Shame we couldn't get him, but I'm sure Lestrade will be able to handle that." Unbidden, a smile breaks across my face. "Our work here is done."

The conclusion of the case settles upon the night like the satisfying resolution of one final orchestral chord. The sound fills my ears in the rustling of the leaves, in the sighing of the wind, in the humming of the bugs. Silently, the conductor's cue ends the symphony. "Oh, this case."

I await the quiet ring of his familiar voice, that constancy which I've grown so accustomed to hearing. "John?" I question when I'm met with only the sounds of the darkness.

"Sher… here."

I blink. He sounds strange, almost strained. My brow furrowed in question, I turn in the direction of his words –

My heart hurdles into my throat.

For a moment, there is only silence, the gleam of the moon on his bowed head, his bent shoulders – his broken jacket. And then with a crack of stringed dissonance, my watch is shrieking, shouting, the tick of the second hand screaming at me to move, to _move_. My feet stumble at the first command; they stutter out a staccato of uncertainty in the crunching leaves before the ground goes whipping backward and I go lurching forward. I don't register that I'm beside him until the mud sends a cold jolt up through my knees to stab at the core of my chest. I explode into action.

"John. John, can you hear me?" My voice grapples with the bass roaring of my pulse as I shove the folds of his jacket aside. Even through my gloves, my hands are at once slick with his blood.

"Yes…" It's barely a word. It's a struggling sound between a cough and a cry, and it repulses my ears.

"John, look at me." His eyes – wide – snap to mine.

"I'm alright," he chokes.

My gaze absorbs with some hissing tremor of low brass the rose of blood blooming from his broken skin. The scent is so strong that my vision spins when I inhale it. I know that I'm accustomed to this, it's my occupation, but never has blood appeared so thick or so red. And not in this volume, never in this volume.

His gaze is drifting. I speak his name. He looks at me, nods slightly.

"Keep looking at me." My hands leap up to my chin to grab at the folds of my scarf. Unable to gain traction, the wool slips through my soaked fingers twice before it's finally off my neck. Slow.

I move his hand aside from where it's clenched tightly over the wound and push the scarf against his skin. I've barely begun applying pressure when he stiffens and cries out.

Ribs broken. I don't know how many.

I hesitate. "John, what do I – "

He shakes his head. It takes him far too much effort. "It's fine, keep pressing," he coughs.

I follow his command without question as I delve into my pockets for my mobile. My thumb attacks the number pad. The dial tone, one ring, two, a click.

"Emergency – which service do you require?"

"Ambulance." He's drifting again. "John, look at me."

A pause. "Sir, I'm connecting you to the ambulance service right now."

A series of clicks, muffled murmuring. "What's your em – ?"

Situation, location, injury, patient age, patient condition. "A man's been shot, the eastern side of the reservoir outside of Hounslow, TW3. The bullet pierced the left side of the torso, between the eighth and ninth ribs by my estimate. At least one is broken. The man is forty-one years of age, he's still conscious, and he's still breathing." His head falls against his shoulder. I speak his name again. He's sluggish this time when he squints up at me.

"A team will be there as soon as possible, sir. In the meantime, please leave your mobile – "

She couldn't possibly speak any slower, stupid, brainless, vapid. "07700 900573." I lose his eyes once more. "John, look at me."

He nods. "I'm fine, it's alright, Sherlock." His voice is breaking now; it's almost beyond understanding between its tightness and his gasping. I see a flicker of expression cross his gaze, though I don't have time to define it.

"Is – ?"

Preventative measures. "The bleeding is profuse; I'm attempting to staunch it, it's not having much of an effect." Medical history. "He's been shot before, left shoulder, it was a service wound – " the eyes gone again, "John, here, look at me – " the nod back again, "this recent one was delivered by a criminal, yes, the police will be here momentarily, tell the responders to look for the car lights. John."

There's a shout through a muffled receiver, and then, "Sir, the ambulance will be with you as quickly as possible. You may hang up. Be sure to call back if there are any changes in his condition."

The phone falls from my fingers, landing on the dirt with a dull thud. The sound is a crack of bass upon my ears. "John." He blinks. "Stay with me. John."

"I'm alright, I'm fine…" He raises a trembling hand in reassurance as I lift the scarf to examine the wound. Still bleeding. The wool is soaked through. "I'm fine, Sherlock."

The decline of his voice – the graying of his face – the struggle of his breath suggest otherwise. I shift closer to him when his teeth clack together in a shiver. "Shush, John, breathe," I tell him as quietly as I can manage. My heart is pounding.

He nods weakly. "I'm alright…"

"Stay with me," I say. His eyes flutter closed.

I freeze.

"Stay with me, John," I repeat, louder this time. His hand falls from his side.

"John, look at me." Louder yet. He's still.

"John." Louder. Silence.

"_John_!"

And yet there is nothing, nothing but the tick of the watch. It's screaming.

"Sherlock."

Lestrade.

Certainly enough, there is the distant call of police-car sirens, the sound of his heavy footfalls. "Good, we finally found – " I hear him halt mid-stride. "Oh, Jesus."

He's seen him. "Did you – ?" he begins.

"Yes, of course I did. I'm not an idiot."

"I – "

"_Shut up_!" I whip up to my feet, spin around to face the surprise in his expression. I feel the weight of my pulse as it bursts through my veins, and it's a moment of trying to tame it before, breath hissing, I say, "Shut up, I need to think."

The ambulance arrives no more than five minutes later, and it's quite suddenly that I'm alongside him in the back of the vehicle, blinking the ceiling lights out of my eyes. There are machines clicking and beeping, wires taped to his arm, paramedics busying around him. They're no more than a yard from me, and I can hear them clearly, and yet their conversation drowns in my ears.

It's thirty-four minutes and seventeen seconds before the ambulance shudders to a halt. He's rushed out on a stretcher, rushed into the building, rushed down some indefinite hallway. I find myself seated on a bench in a nearby corridor, a stack of paperwork in my hands. My eyes gloss over the words again and again, and yet I'm not reading them.

Of its own accord, the pen in my fingers begins tracing out the answers to the typed questions – something about his name, my relation to him, his medical history. A nurse comes by to make some obvious statement about the information. Surgery's begun by now, certainly, and yet he tells me nothing. Useless.

It's one in the morning when the final line of ink has been filled with my muddled handwriting and the pen clicks closed. The sound rings hollowly off the walls.

I feel a sudden shiver run up my spine. My back is up against the frosted panes of the window running the length of the bench. As I turn to adjust myself, I glimpse the night.

I find that I'm staring out into it until my watch's ticking hails the first flush of the sun at a quarter past seven. The colouration of the sky lightens from black to gray to violet to the slimmest band of blue. It's in the blue that I see the exact same tone of the sky at noon. It's a darker colour, an almost watery colour; that one precise shade, and I could be looking at him –

I shake my head, brow furrowed. Stupid thing to think.

My head snaps up at the sound of a door opening just as my watch clicks to 08:21:17. A nurse, tugging a mask off her face, emerges from the room into which they've taken him. She cranes her neck around until she catches sight of a doctor – head down, steps small – approaching. She waves him over, exchanges a few words with him, hands over a clipboard. I watch his fingers scratch at his neck as a trolley rolls by.

After another moment of dialogue, the nurse gestures in my direction. He nods and paces over.

"Mr Holmes, yes? I'm Dr Hollander." He extends a hand. My gaze flicks down to it and then returns to him. He clears his throat, allows his arm to fall back to his side.

"So, well." He glances at the paperwork attached to the clipboard. There's a wedding ring gleaming on his left hand. "I understand you're here for Dr Watson…"

"Yes, I should think that's quite obvious."

He blinks as if taken aback. Really, he should have expected it, stating something so apparent. "Well." He shifts. "According to what's here, the surgery is complete, and the procedure was successful. The rib was set, blood transplanted, the wound stitched and dressed…"

He swallows, licks his lips. All too obvious.

"What else?"

"...Oh." He wasn't expecting that. "Unfortunately, there was damage to the stomach, and he'll need to be moved into intensive care. It's highly possible he won't regain consciousness for some time." And yet there's still something else.

"This job isn't for you and it never was."

His face falls.

"You're a tall man, but you were cutting your stride when you came down the hall, hands in your pockets – thumbs hidden – eyes fixed on the floor. All clear signs of discontent. Perhaps it's nothing to do with your work, but then there was that _wince_ of yours when the dog* came by; the nurse didn't give it a second thought. Oh, and how foolish of me, almost forgot the wistful glance out the window as soon as she was out of sight."

I see his hands tightening. "Sir, I don't know what you're – "

"_Don't know_? Unsurprising. You're young, disinterested in money going by the four-year-old shoes, and you're in possession of a degree that could be easily applied to another occupation. Yet, against your will, you elect to stay here. Why? I think the ring says it all."

"Sir – "

"It's far more expensive than anything else you're wearing, the wristwatch included. Just married, no? Whoever she is, she expects ample funding. How much is it that you doctors make a year, £70,000? Seems she's be well provided for, though you're not going to be happy. Perhaps I should spare you the trouble and tell you that the marriage won't last a month."

He stares at me for a long, fixed moment. His lips are held in a shaking line. He's angry.

He's about to speak when another doctor walks up and makes to ask him a question. He pushes the clipboard into her hands, hisses something into her ear, and promptly stalks off. She stares after him in confusion. "Okay, hello," she offers finally. "It looks like you're to be taken to the trauma unit, yes? Right this way, if you would." She turns on her heel and strides down one of the adjoining halls. Though my feet are suddenly quite reluctant to move, I follow her.

She stops before the room to request that I keep quiet and refrain from disturbing the patients and the other visitors. It's with this that she swings open the door and ushers me in.

It's a small room, holding six beds. Two are already occupied, the blue curtains drawn around them. Plain linoleum floor, overly bright ceiling lights, three windows on the opposite wall. Boring.

She indicates the bench next to the door, suggesting I wait there until they bring him in. I almost tell her about the cheating boyfriend, but as soon as my lips part, the words die on my tongue. I can't say why.

He's taken in fifteen minutes and forty-nine seconds later. I watch wordlessly as he's transferred to the bed. The glimpses I'm able to get of him are cut short by the doctor and the nurses as they shift busily around him.

I wait until the door closes behind the back of the last nurse to sit on the stool next to the bed. It's a simple wooden thing, and I immediately find it uncomfortable.

I look down at him motionless beneath the pressed white sheets. His skin is strikingly pale, as if he hasn't seen the light of day in months. There's a tangle of tubes and wires connected to all manner of liquids taped to his right arm. His eyes are closed. Of course they are, I don't know what else they would be.

I soon find myself staring out the windows again. The whole of the sky is blue, but I realise I'm expecting gray.

"Hello."

It's been ten hours, forty minutes, and fifteen seconds in this room, and now, Lestrade.

I don't look up.

His footsteps are obscenely loud as they echo off the otherwise soundless walls. He halts a few paces from my back, bringing with him the organic perfume of plants. "Brought some flowers," he offers. His voice is empty among the silence. "Thought that might be nice. Does he – well, anyway."

There's a pause. He shifts his feet. "And these are from Molly," he continues. In his faint reflection in the window, I see him rearrange the mound of flowers so that a cluster of red petals is in front. "She was begging to be let out of work for the day to visit, but it's busy down there… and this huge one, Sally and Anderson bought together. I'm pretty sure she picked them out, though." He laughs and then clears his throat. "She – well, all of them, they're worr – rooting for him."

He takes a tentative few steps forward so that I'm able to see him in the edges of my eyesight. "He's a tough one, isn't he?" He nods down at John.

_A tough one._

"If you're going to be spouting platitudes because you haven't – "

"Don't do that, Sherlock."

I tighten. It's as though my muscles have been bound up and they're now straining to tear free. "Do _what_?"

He sighs. "You know what I mean."

The bonds snap.

My head twists so I'm facing him head-on. "And _I_ know," I say through gritted teeth, "everything about your problems with your wife. I mentioned the PE teacher already, no? Did I happen to mention why?"

He swallows.

"Let's think back to when the arguments first began, shall we? I'd say… oh, five months ago, that was the first time I saw the box of chocolates in your office. By the way, if you were really hoping to make any sort of impression, Tesco wasn't the place to shop. Concerning the fighting, your posture hasn't improved since – thumbs in your pockets, shoulders curled. You've lost whatever presence you once affected, though it wasn't particularly influential in the first place.

"So, the affair began shortly afterward. Obvious. But why? Nothing had changed about you. Detective Inspector Lestrade, the patron saint of the _everyman_. No alteration in job hours, regular contact with your children – you've got three – consistency of personality. Had something noticeable happened with her, lost her job or grew suddenly dissatisfied with you, it would have reflected in you. But it didn't. How long was it, twenty years? All that time spent without change, and now, change. It seems inexplicable, but of course _I'm_ able to explain it."

His mouth tightens.

"It's simple. She lost interest in you and you'd be deluded to think she had any in the first place. Not only that, but you've known this for some time, however in a most _human_ attempt to uphold an internalised self-image, you denied it. But then, that's what 'love' does."

I feel my breath slowing down, that sudden rush of heat subsiding. I itch at the patch of skin beneath the band of the watch. "Care to say something?" I ask. "Go ahead."

He's silent for a long, long moment. Then, quietly, he says, "He'll be alright. He'll pull through."

There's a response ready in my throat, but it dies away with the strange, sudden twinge that clenches my stomach. My mouth closes of its own accord.

"You, in the meantime," he adds as he glances over at me, "look like piss."

My eyes fall short of his when I turn to look at him. "I'm fine."

"Okay." He nods. "I'll just leave these here, then." I hear him step behind me to rest the bundle of flowers on the side table. Their foliage rustles as they settle.

I turn briefly in their direction. "They're, ah…" I clear my throat. "Very good."

He glances at me before returning his attention to the window. "Yeah, the florist woman was very friendly," he says after a pause. "She was explaining how you're supposed to bring certain flowers for certain events, or which ones people are more inclined to like – 'personality botany', I think she called it." He grins. I'm not sure why. "Neat, no?"

No, actually, not at all.

My chin twists to the side. "It's… interesting."

"Yeah, they're lilies, the pink ones. Molly's are daffodils, the others are a whole mix." He nods to himself.

"So, I think I'll just head out. If you could come by the Yard with him when everything's alright." He pauses. "It will be, you know. Alright."

I look down at the swathe of white sheets. "Yes. Fine."

He nods once more in the reflection of the window before I hear his footsteps fade away down the hall. The scent of the flowers hangs in the air.

My ears again adapt themselves to the beeping of the machines and the breathing of the patients. The sound is so constant that it might as well be absent.

I look through one of the windows to find that the sky has darkened. It couldn't have been more than an hour ago that it was a vivid blue, a sharp contrast to the autumnal orange fading from the trees. No more than an hour, and yet it seems like it has been days since last I saw the sun. Ridiculous, I realise. Twenty hours, twelve minutes, one second. I'm losing track of time.

I raise my head at the sudden sound of music. The notes echo quietly from the next room over – the result of an overworked nurse escaping from the commotion of the building. I can just discern the vibrato of a well-strung violin.

His hand is warm when I rest mine above it.

I wake with his name on my lips.

My pulse is shouting in my ears, my breath coming in rough gasps, my skin freezing in cold sweat. My hand is clenched tightly around his.

I inhale open-mouthed the bitter burn of the disinfectant until the sting of blood is washed down my throat. My back protests defiantly as I draw myself up from the hard surface of the hospital mattress.

He looks no different, still ashen and motionless, lost among the heaping folds of the starch-white sheets. His breath is consistent; his eyes remain closed. Of course. I don't know what I expected.

A hint of perfume interrupts the staunch tang of the antiseptic, and I turn to the right to see the flowers Lestrade brought. I check my watch. Twelve hours, seventeen minutes, and forty-four seconds since he was here. I was asleep for far too long.

My eyes drift to John's hands. They're still and pale above the sheets. The curve in his right thumb bears the marks of tens of hundreds of carefully-sewn stitches. From the military, certainly, from years spent bending over bloodstained cots. Doctors' hands really are the most fascinating of all. Silently, I rise to my feet.

This early in the morning, the halls and byways are nearly empty despite the fact that visiting hours not extended by brother dear began ninety-six minutes ago. The sun coming through the lobby windows is unusually white compared to the tinted gleam of the ceiling lights in the room. I slip past a group of nurses and through the doorway to the gift shop.

It's empty, save for the cashier, who's a post-graduate psychology student desperate for a useful internship going by the texts and unfinished résumés spread out beneath the counter. She's got an important essay due soon; the callus on her right thumb is raw and red, and the rubbish bin contains an unusual amount of notebook paper crumpled in frustration.

There's a disturbing number of 'feel better soon' balloons tethered to a bar running along the far wall, along with enough pacifiers for all the teething infants in the world and more platitudinous, uninspired well-wishing cards than I could ever care to see. Though I suppose it's a feat in itself to find that many words to rhyme with 'sick'.

The flowers are in the back, looming a heady cloud of confused fragrances over the whole of their corner. Among them, I recognise only the roses, which I understand to be symbolic of a romantic gesture and therefore a poor choice.

I consider for some time the criteria by which one might select plants. Lestrade's dissertation yesterday was useless other than suggesting to me that there _are_ indeed such criteria. It can't have anything to do with colour as the selection he brought runs the rainbow. Certainly there isn't any relation to the qualities of the stems if the petals are meant to be the main focus. The differences between the designs on the leaves are too minute to be of particular meaning, the shapes of the plants too multifarious to take up a pattern, the scent – oh, of course. So painfully obvious that I haven't noticed. The flowers Lestrade brought all have a perfume-like quality to their aroma, an attribute I would associate with femininity, geniality, perhaps elegance. It matches well the fragrance of a small bouquet of white petals near the back of the display.

The cashier, certainly eager to get back to her paper, is thankfully prompt, though she does look very closely at me and tell me she's sorry. I've no idea what to make of that.

There's barely any space on the side table for the bouquet to be placed when I return to the room. I end up being forced to shove the stems in among one of the other clusters.

The time passes uneventfully, day giving way to night, doctors in and out, John unchanging. The sun is down at half past six and up again at seven. The flowers are beginning to look a bit dry, and so I take the glass of one of the doctors placed on the table and dump its contents on the stems, my sleeve mopping up the water spilled onto the wood. Certainly, that must be all there is to caring for plants. Though I've no idea how one can make a career out of that.

The watch reads 10:26:14 when the slightest breath of sound interrupts the room's silence.

His brow has furrowed ever so slightly; his fingers are twitching atop the sheets; his mouth is moving in the shapes of vague words. There is the shift of his head to the side, and suddenly I'm staring into two circles of sky.

He frowns. "Sherlock?"

My ears drink in that simplest of words in the tonality of his voice. Resonant.

"Yes, John."

He flexes his fingers, shuffles his legs slightly as if recalling how to use his limbs. He blinks tightly before he allows his gaze to roam the contours of the room. "Not St Bart's," he says after a pause. His voice is thick with sleep.

"No."

He closes his eyes and draws a deep breath. "We were…" He trails off. "It was nighttime, we were after someone. It was – oh, the reservoir, it was Hounslow. I got shot." A flicker of some indefinable expression crosses his eyes. His hand passes over his face. A smile breaks across his features as he turns to look at me. "Guess a second one couldn't hurt, hmm?"

My lips press together.

He shades his eyes. "Oh, God, it's bright," he mumbles. "I'm going to have a hell of a headache."

I feel my jaw tighten as he chuckles. "You're much unconcerned," I snap.

His brow furrows, but he soon dismisses the expression and adjusts into a slightly more comfortable position. "How long have I been out for?" he asks.

"Two days, eleven hours." And twenty-five minutes and forty-four seconds.

He blinks. "Christ. No wonder I'm sore, this mattress is hard as a rock…"

His eyes raise above my shoulders when one of the doctors walks in. She comes over upon seeing him awake. They exchange some greeting; he asks her a few questions.

I'm not listening to what they're saying. My ears have tuned them out, turned inwards. I don't know what's made me think of it, but suddenly, my heart is beating. His heart is beating.

The sudden click of her shoes is the only thing that tells me she's left; I don't hear whatever goodbyes are exchanged. We're alone again, John and I, and I know that it's a second too long that I leave the look lingering on my face.

He blinks up at me, brow furrowed in confusion. "Sherl – ?"

"You're not coming with me on cases anymore."

It's sudden.

He's silent for a long moment. "What?"

My fingers curl into my palms. "I said, you're – "

When he speaks, his voice isn't far above a murmur, and yet his words are delivered in a shout. "_What_ are you talking about?"

I look straight at him and I don't move away.

"You – "

My throat is disgusted by the pitch of the word transposed into this strange, hateful key. " – are slow, inept, and useless." Every consonant a spit of marcato, every vowel a hiss of gamak. The silence of the room shivers. "I don't need that kind of liability impeding my work."

Quiet again.

He stares at me, speechless and unmoving. A long, tight blink, a clenching of the jaw, and then, in a voice that is dangerously hushed, "Okay." His nostrils flare; his eyes shimmer. Something about the expression registers with me. "I don't know what your problem is – "

"I don't have a problem, John." It's spoken plainly; it's stated frankly. Fine. I'm fine. "It's a conclusion I've held for some time."

His head falls back onto the pillow as his eyelids sink closed. "Look, I'm really not feeling well, we'll talk about this later," he murmurs.

"There's nothing to talk about," I say. Certainly he understands that. "My opinion on the matter – "

"Sherlock, stop," he says.

"I – "

"_Stop_."

My mouth closes.

A taut silence settles in the air. He stares fixedly away from me, his mouth rigid and his eyes burning. Finally, he shouts, "God, you can't even – !"

My shoulders draw back as, eyes narrowed, I meet his gaze. "I can't what?"

For a long moment, he glowers up at me, and my lips wait to sneer at his shouting and swearing. He'll call me 'git', he'll call me 'bastard', he'll call me 'sod' – and then he frowns. Just frowns. "Nothing, never mind." His head turns away. "Just shut up, alright?"

My eyes find the blank slate of the wall. "Fine."

It's a long hour of clocked silence before I hear his breathing even out and slow down. I try his name in an undertone, but he offers no response. He's asleep, then.

I feel my shoulders slump under the heft of some sudden weight. My back aches; my limbs are weak; my chest feels heavy. There's a dull ache beating inside of my head. With nothing to listen to, focus on, every throb is magnified. I'm exhausted.

I lay my head down and close my eyes. The mattress is cold.

"The doctor tells me you've been here the entire time."

I blink the harsh glare of the ceiling lights out of my eyes as my head raises from the surface of the bed. My vision is blurred with the remnants of sleep when I turn to look at him. "He's wrong," I say in a rasp.

"I'm not counting the toilet."

I restrain a yawn. "No, I left."

"For what?"

My tongue is reluctant to answer. "Flowers," I say finally. His silence presses on my ears, and I add, "It's protocol, isn't it?"

I see his lips restrain some indefinite expression at my response. "You got the white ones," he says.

I blink. My head whips around to the cluster of plants. I observe the curl a day's time has made in the petals, the bend my and Lestrade's grips have twisted into the stems, the wither a lack of water has dried through the leaves. There is no discernible point of differentiation. "How did you know that?" I ask after a pause.

"Because they symbolise death." He speaks plainly. "You bring them to funerals. You're the only person in England who wouldn't know that."

Well. "…Oh."

I hear the question before he asks it. "Are we going to talk about your no-more-cases issue?"

My fingers tighten where they rest in my lap. I weigh the response for a long moment before saying, "John, it would be unwise for you to continue accompanying me."

He considers. "First I'm worthless – "

My chest tightens. "I never said that."

"You came close enough, and now it's unwise." He looks directly at me. I drop my gaze. "What's really going on here?"

My eyes end up somewhere above his head as I survey the white room. He was right before, it's very bright – very bright and very quiet. "We'll discuss this later."

"We'll discuss this now."

His voice registers firmly upon me. With a quickening of pulse, I realise that I could make any excuse and he would refuse to accept it. "John…"

He doesn't so much as blink.

"I – "

Instantly, every part of me strains to reel that one wayward syllable back, to lock it behind clenched teeth somewhere in my tightening throat. But there are his eyes searing into mine.

"I don't – want you…" It's a struggle, it's a physical pain, but still the eyes.

I open my mouth; the sentence is already started, and he expects me to finish it. I just need to speak – just words, just three words – and yet I feel as if I'm choking on vomit when I try to shove them out. "Getting hurt again."

His breathing – mere silence – is my only response.

"Sherlock…"

Gone is all of his previous commandeering, that smallest hint of a threat. It's John Watson's voice I hear. It speaks again.

"You're blaming yourself for this."

My breath catches.

A hundred refusals, a thousand negations, a million denials leap to my lips, and yet none of them emerges. I'm left staring wordlessly at his eyes with my heartbeat ringing in my ears.

"Sherlock, don't," he commands.

I feel my voice unlock itself.

"Don't?" is the first word it chooses to say. "_Don't_? What is there to fault but my imprudence?" I snort, openly mocking now. "Really, John."

"No, Sherlock – " he begins, but I don't care to listen. I shake my head at myself, a laughing 'stupid' slipping past my lips.

"Sherlock – " he starts again.

I don't know why he's trying to convince me I'm wrong. I don't know why he's so convinced that I'm some kind of bloody _hero_. "You're not listening to reason." My volume borders on a shout, and I find that I don't know how to quiet myself. "I was rash, and you and your _fidelity_ can't deny that."

"Sherlock, listen to me," he attempts yet again. "This is not your fault."

"John – "

"Sherlock, please." His voice is quiet yet insistent, calm yet urging. "This is not your fault, it's not, it's no one's fault but the bugger who got me. Do you understand me? Not your fault."

My jaw is like a seizure in my bones; my blood is like a fire in my veins; my heart is like a hammer in my chest, and I need to stop, I need to shut up and settle myself, I need to _think_, but the words are breaking out before I can stop them. "That doesn't change the fact that you could have died."

"Sherlock – "

"John, _you could have died_!"

My voice finally shatters the earsplitting silence of the illusory glass that has been shining on the walls and on the floor and on the ceiling. For the first time in two days, eighteen hours, nine minutes and twenty-four seconds, it is quiet.

Trying to ease my breathing, I drift to the window. The sky is clear outside.

"I know that," he says after a few ticking moments have gone by. "I'm always aware of that. I would have gone anyway."

My lips tighten. Here he is lying in a hospital bed, still clinging to this ridiculous _conviction_ to me. He must see how irrational he's being. "But why – ?"

"Because we're friends." He smiles, and my mouth closes. "Aren't we?"

Friends.

I don't think about that kind of thing, "friends". I don't bother. The definition, unsurprisingly, is and has always been foolish – a humanly defective attempt at making scientific something emotional. It's abhorrent. It's especially so when the very idea of the classification is nothing more than a distraction, a disturbance, a disruption; in the end, there is nothing. Logic knows the meaninglessness of feeling.

And yet there is John Watson; and with him the gentle grin, and with him the noonday eyes, and with him the doctor's hands; and with him the laugh and the warmth and the calm; and with him that quiet stirring of sound at my ears, in my chest, that _thing_ for which I have no name; and with him – friendship.

"Yes."

I don't realise I've spoken until he nods up at me. He's still smiling. He does that often. "Good."

He's quiet for a moment. And when I look down at him, there is that flicker again, that same twinge as when he was bleeding out and when he first woke.

_Scared_.

He's mistaken; it's not fear. It's the ghost of a war, of endless days of sand and blood and death. It must have been with him a few hours ago in his dreams – they would have been nightmares; it must have returned to him just now. And yet he's smiling.

"John, are you…" My throat clears itself. "Alright?"

He looks at me – I'm uncertain as to why he looks surprised – before answering, "Yeah, I'm fine."

"No, I mean… are you really alright?" I'm taken aback by how quietly my voice emerges from my throat. It almost sounds soft.

He stares at me, his expression unreadable. He smiles again, though it's not without struggle. "It was bloody terrifying. It was like I was there again. Afghanistan, I mean." He swallows. "I could almost see the sand. I could hear the sound of grenades going off; I always hated that the most. That had never happened. I've had flashbacks before, but that was something else. I don't think I could even have told what was real and what wasn't, if you hadn't been talking. Your voice is – " He glances up at me and forces a grin. "Sorry."

I only wait for him to continue.

He hesitates, but resumes with a quick cough. "What I mean is that I'm glad you were there. And I did get a little shaken up, and maybe I am still, but I'll be alright. I'm just tired, now…" He wets his lips. "Sorry, I know you're not comfortable with that kind of thing. I don't know why I said all that."

I consider. "Because we're friends?" I try.

A laugh twinkles from his throat. "You bloody idiot."

I glance down at my watch to hide the smile threatening at my lips. To my surprise, it's no longer on my wrist. I find it hidden somewhere among the thicket of flowers on the side table. Yet I don't recall taking it off.

Mrs Hudson comes to visit us later along with an armful of petunias. She's a tearful flurry of worry when she first sees John's condition, and then we're subjected to an obligatory round of kisses on the cheek. She fusses at us until John assures her five times that he is completely fine and is due to soon make a full recovery. She insists that she bring us something to eat from Baker Street as "the stuff in the lobby can't be good", comments that John looks peaky and that I need to shave, "the beard is awful on you" – I suppose my chin is a bit more stubbly than usual, though I'm really not sure why it matters – and perhaps she can get us some nicer pillows. John tells her gently that she's not our housekeeper.

"Dear, I can be a housekeeper for one day," she says.

We end up with nicer pillows.

"Oh, I've never been happier to be here," he exclaims as I open the door to the flat.

Admittedly, I myself find something cathartic about the familiar scent of must and Mrs Hudson's perfume – she's just cleaned – the elegant pattern on the wallpaper above the waiting sofa, the array of experiments organised just as I've left them. I do suspect that something's gone a bit fusty judging by the sour hint in the air. Probably the Russian bread, it was already growing mould about a week ago.

He notices it also, being that his nose wrinkles in distaste. He turns to me with a wry smile. "No place like home, hmm?"

He settles carefully into the armchair near the empty fireplace – he's already told me he'll be somewhat immobile for the next couple of weeks – as I shrug my coat off and hang it on the rack. I join him on the opposite chair with my phone in one hand. Might as well check the website.

"Hey, Sherlock?" he says suddenly.

I turn away from the message blinking on the screen to see him. "Yes?"

He's quiet for a long moment, his gaze fixed on the ground. The strangest of smiles is on his face, and I'm taken aback by its strength when he looks at me. "Nothing."

No, nothing. Nothing but my friend.

I return his smile with the greatest of ease.


End file.
